On Saturday evening, Russian Pavel Durov, who holds French citizenship, was detained in a suburb of Paris, after an arrest warrant was issued for him in connection with the fight against Telegram, the messenger service he is the founder and CEO of.
The detention took place at the airport when Durov returned to France on his private jet. According to TF1, the reason was the lack of cooperation with law enforcement agencies regarding the Telegram story.
Among the possible charges listed in the French press are illegal broadcasts of football matches of the local French championship on Durov's platform.
According to Le Figaro, more than 200,000 users watched the opening match of the new Ligue 1 season between PSG and Le Havre via pirated Telegram broadcasts. Instead, the official DAZN broadcaster was affected. It is stated that people consider the price of the package for showing the championship, which has lost its main star (Kylian Mbappe), too high - 40 euros per month or 30 euros if the viewer chooses the option of subscribing for a year at a time.
Another problem was that Telegram's response time to complaints about the removal of illegal copyrighted content was incompatible with the fight against piracy during live broadcasts, as the platform responds in about a day.
Durov is likely to end up in a pre-trial detention center. He faces imprisonment.
